In Plain View (21 page)

Annie nodded. “The sink in the back room. It’s not draining well. I don’t think it’s anything too troublesome.”

“I’ll take a look.”

“Thank you, Elijah.” She raised her eyes to meet his. He seemed to hold words in his throat that he could not bring himself to say. “Is there something else?”

“I don’t know if Ruth told you she saw me,” he finally said, “when she came down with you a couple weeks ago.”

“No, she didn’t say anything.” Anyone could see Elijah Capp was still twisted in heartbreak.

“I know she’s not coming back.” Elijah ran his thumb and index finger along the brim of his hat. “But she’s not over me.”

“Well, Elijah, I think you’re right. On both counts.”

“She’s wrong if she thinks I can’t make my own choice. I wish she would make room for happiness.”

Annie moistened her lips. She was not sure she understood what he was talking about—and if he were planning something, she was not sure she wanted to know what it was. She sliced open another box. “What are you saying, Elijah?”

He shifted his weight and shrugged one shoulder. “Ruth and I are not any more unlikely than you and Rufus.”

Annie stopped, midmotion, and turned her whole body toward Elijah. Squatting in the dust in her jeans, picking through the remains of an unknown life with her hair once again tumbling out of its ponytail, she felt about as un-Amish as she had at any moment in her life.

“At least you and Ruth have the past together,” she finally said.

“That’s not good enough for me.” Elijah’s jaw set.

“Still, it’s something.” Annie’s legs ached from squatting. She stood up and looked down at Elijah from the truck bed. “Sometimes I think Rufus and I are getting close, but I always manage to disappoint him with what I don’t understand about being Amish.”

“Is that how you think he feels?”

“Doesn’t he?” Annie doubted Rufus talked to anyone about his feelings, so how would Elijah know?

“He’s not disappointed. He just doesn’t know what to do with you.”

“Because I’m
English?
Because he has no business getting involved with me?”

“Because you do the unexpected.”

Annie blew out her breath. “That must frustrate him no end.”

“I think it pleases him no end.”

“I don’t know if I can ever follow
Ordnung
. Rufus deserves to be with someone who understands his life.”

“He deserves to be with someone who
is
his life.”

Air rushed into Annie’s throat far too fast, and she turned away.

Elijah shifted his toolbox to the other arm. “I’ll go see about that stopped drain.”

Annie smoothed out the purple Amish dress on her bed. It had once been Ruth’s dress. Ruth, someone who knew how to be Amish.

Annie had done so well over the winter.

She learned to cook. She
would
learn to quilt properly. Her ears throbbed with Pennsylvania Dutch and High German. She learned to pray. Sort of. And she had broken the spine of her Bible with wear.

Then she went home and wore that stupid red dress—still hanging in the closet of her childhood bedroom.

When she put it on, she slid into old skin, where everything fit. Nothing about her life since had fit right.

Annie dropped her T-shirt and jeans to the floor and pulled the purple dress over her head. Her fingers had become nimble with pinning the pieces of the dress in place. She yanked a brush through her hair, pinned up the blond mass, and put on a prayer
kapp
.

She did not have a mirror in her bedroom. The only mirror in the house was the small one in the bathroom. But she still had her imagination, and it served her well in forming a mental picture of herself.

Perhaps her own ancestors had looked not so different from this. Plain dresses. Tamed hair.
Kapps
on their heads as they sought to discern humility and peace as a way of life.

The rap on the door sounded distant, as if it came through the centuries rather than simply up the stairwell. Annie almost did not move, not willing to surrender the moment. But the sound came again, more insistent.

There was no time to change. Besides, it was no secret to anyone in town that she sometimes wore Amish clothing. Annie clutched purple yardage in her fingers and descended the stairs.

She opened the front door. “Rufus!”

“Hello, Annalise.” He stood with his hands crossed in front of him at the wrists. “I am more than a week delayed, but I thought perhaps we could have that walk.”

Annie smiled and laid her hand in his open palm.

“Am I taking you away from something?” Rufus allowed himself to squeeze Annalise’s hand as they started down the crumbling sidewalk that she had not allowed him to fix. Yet.

Annalise shook her head. “I was just planning a quiet evening at home.”

“I see.”

“You’re wondering about the dress, aren’t you?” Annalise said. “You’ve seen me wear it plenty of times.”

“When you come to supper, or church.” Rufus inhaled her scent, her nearness. “But in your own home?”

“It makes me feel peaceful. Helps me think.”

“And your thoughts tonight?”

“I haven’t felt so peaceful lately. Being Amish…well, it’s not as easy as people think.” Annalise raised brimming eyes. “And I’ve missed you.”

“Things will settle down now,” Rufus said. “The Stutzmans are in their own house. Life will go back to normal.”

“I hope so.”

“You have nothing to worry about, Annalise.”

“Don’t I?”

“No. No one holds a candle to you.” Rufus squeezed her hand again.

“Let’s take a very long walk, then.” She squeezed back.

“What do you have in the way of garden tools?” he asked as they reached the street and fell into rhythm with each other.

Annalise sucked in a smile. “For my garden? I’m afraid I don’t have much to work with.”

“Why don’t we walk over to Tom’s hardware store? Jacob is going to need something that suits his size to break up your soil tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I thought my brothers and I could do the tilling while you’re quilting.”

“Oh, no you don’t. I want to be there.”

Rufus paused his steps, forcing Annalise to stop and look at him. “Let me do this for you, Annalise.”

She started to protest further but put a hand to her own mouth. “Demut. I don’t have to do everything myself.”

Twenty-Three

I
saw you out walking in that purple dress.” Mrs. Weichert moved a set of figurines and cleaned the glass shelf beneath the small statues.

Annie tilted her head to one side as she ran a thumb along a row of forty-year-old books on Monday. “It was a nice evening for a walk.”

“I suppose a lot of people think you’re crazy, but I think you look darling in those dresses.”

Darling? Not exactly Annie’s goal. “I wonder if we should give up on some of these books. They don’t seem to be selling.”

“It takes time. We’ll get a lot more weekenders once summer is in full swing.” Mrs. Weichert rearranged figurines. “Everybody wonders if you’re really going to become Amish.”

Annie’s reply caught in her throat. She dislodged it and let it slide down.

“It’s wonderful to see a young person willing to make a sacrifice,” Mrs. Weichert said.

Annie reached back with both hands and tightened her ponytail. “Maybe I should bring those dishes out of the storeroom. It’s a complete set, and only a couple of tiny nicks. You almost can’t see them.”

The ceramic dishes had been one of the best finds in the truckload of boxes Annie had sorted through the previous week. They dated back to the 1970s, but the earth tones looked surprisingly contemporary. In the storeroom now, Annie turned over one of the bowls to find the manufacturer. A name etched in a brown circle was not quite readable. A signature served as a logo, but she could not decide if the vowel in the center was an
A
or an
E
.

The old impulse surged to reach for her iPhone and get on the Internet. She could not do that any longer, but she could use Mrs. Weichert’s computer. The laptop was anachronistic in this shop of vintage and antique items, but it served a needful business purpose. Annie moved to the small desk, opened the laptop, and tapped a thumb on the track pad. At least once a week she used a computer to help in her work. Annie’s deft navigation of the Internet had yielded price-setting information beyond Mrs. Weichert’s knowledge on several occasions. Even some of the Amish used computers to run their businesses. But for Annie, the automatic movements her hands made, the sleek keys under her fingers, and the familiar sensation of her eyes on the screen—it all taunted, whispering from shadows.

Annie woke the computer, and a search box appeared. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. Finally, instead of the craftsman’s name, she typed two words.
Randy Sawyer
. A list filled the screen. She narrowed the search with the name of the company her old flame was working for now, and in an instant his smiling professional photo and bio burned through her gray eyes.

She closed the search box and took a deep breath. What was she doing?

Could she really make this sacrifice, as Mrs. Weichert called it?

It should not feel like a sacrifice. Should it? She should not be wondering about Randy Sawyer. Should she?

Her walk with Rufus on Friday was three days old now. Annie had seen him briefly at his home on Saturday, where he insisted that she stay with his mother and quilt while he dug her garden. On Saturday evening, she sat on her back porch and inhaled the fragrance of turned earth, the fruit of Rufus’s labor with Jacob. On Sunday, she looked up twice from the shared meal after the service to catch Rufus watching her. The violet focus of his eyes stirred a creeping warmth in her before he diverted his gaze.

No,
sacrifice
was the wrong word. Whatever choice lay before her would not feature what she left behind, but rather what she took hold of. And Rufus Beiler was the person who made her want to take hold.

Exhaling, Annie opened the search engine again and soon found the dishes on the Internet. Early seventies, a midwestern manufacturer, designed by an artist who found local fame in other mediums. A limited edition. Only five hundred sets had been cast in the particular color combination stacked a few feet away from the desk. A complete set of eight was definitely of value. Mrs. Weichert should hold out for a good price. Annie carried the dishes out to the shop and began wiping them clean and arranging shelf space.

The bell on the shop door jangled. Glancing up, Annie recognized Colton, the young man who worked in the hardware store Tom Reynolds owned.

“You got any of that Amish jam?” Colton asked. “My wife wants some.”

Mrs. Weichert pointed to the shelf that supported glass jars both Franey Beiler and Edna Stutzman had canned. The man slid jars around with two fingers. Annie supposed he was looking for a particular fruit his wife had requested. Peach and blackberry were all he would find, though.

“It’s all over town that Karl Kramer is on a tear.” Colton picked up one jar of peach and one of blackberry and moved toward the counter.

“What is he knotted up about this time?” Mrs. Weichert tapped the electronic cash register.

“Apparently he keeps close count of his fertilizer bags.” Colton extracted a wallet from his back pocket. “Three bags are missing from a place where he’s been stockpiling supplies. Rumor is it’s some sort of commercial grade with higher ammonium nitrate.”

Annie’s hands stilled.

The cash register beeped. “I don’t know why Rufus wants to work with that man,” Mrs. Weichert said. “You never can tell what little thing is going to set him off. He probably miscounted.”

“Who wants to steal fertilizer, anyway?” Colton asked. “This is ranch country. Everybody has some.”

Not everybody
, Annie thought. Not teenage boys who did not want to raise suspicions by inquiring about ammonium nitrate levels in the fertilizer at the hardware store one of their fathers owned.